A Streetsblog round up this Friday before the Pride Parade

Sunday is San Francisco’s Pride Parade on Market Street. This is also the last weekend before the summer closure of the Twin Peaks tunnel, so there are a few transportation items to track, so to speak.

Getting Ready for the Twin Peaks Tunnel Closure

Monday morning will start the two-month Twin Peaks tunnel closure for track replacement, seismic work, and other repairs. That means substitute bus service between Castro and West Portal. During weekday morning rush hour, from 6-10 a.m., Muni customers transferring from M replacement buses or K trains to BART at Balboa Park can receive a free BART single-ride ticket, good for travel downtown through Embarcadero. It’s unclear why SFMTA isn’t offering free transfers at other times, and in both directions, but at least this is an improvement over the weekend closures last summer. In addition, the K train and J train will operate through service at Balboa Park rather than each turning back. Let’s hope communications and bus replacement go better than last time. Check out the SFMTA’s web page for more details.

Meanwhile, as seen in the lead image, the first signs of the work are already visible–the concrete “thumb nail” in front of Pink Triangle Park in the Castro was removed to make way for staging equipment. As we reported last week, many hope this will result in a permanent fix to that intersection to make the park more accessible. If you haven’t done so already, be sure to sign the petition to make that a reality.

Pride!

San Francisco’s annual street celebration of Gay Pride starts this Sunday at 10:30. The parade starts at Market and Beale and ends at Market and Eighth, near the Pride Celebration at Civic Center Plaza. Many Muni routes will be impacted and street closures begin as early as 6 a.m. on adjoining streets for the parade formation.

Photo: BART

For a full list of street closures and Muni re-routes, check out the SFMTA pride parade page. BART, meanwhile, is running extra trains, and will have extra personnel on hand. They also have a web page set up with more details about the best times to ride to the parade.

Everything you Wanted to Know about Scooters

San Francisco, with its new permit process, has at least temporarily pushed all scooters to Oakland and San Jose. But if you live in San Francisco and liked the little vehicles and want to get a sense of when they’ll be back, maybe you’re in luck. The permit applications are now available online for any and all to view.

Image from Spin’s application cover

So far, there are applications from Razor, Ridecell, Scoot, Skip, Spin and six more, including familiar names such as Lyft and Bird. If you want to read them for yourselves, they are posted here and here.

And Last and Most Definitely Least: Those Socialist bikes and trains!

Streetsblog USA editor Angie Schmitt received this bit of fan mail from what appears to be a Bay Area motorist. On one level, it’s hilarious (and one has to wonder, is it real or is it parody?). On another level, it’s scary to think that people this tribal and angry are also driving around four-ton machines on our public, government-built roads. Stay safe out there.

From: [name withheld]
Date: Fri, Jun 22, 2018 at 11:34 AM
Subject: You will never win the War on Cars
To: Angie Schmitt

Your delusional thinking is infiltrating the government in lots of liberal places, like Palo Alto for example. Look at what they’ve done to the streets. It is sheer incompetence.There is absolutely nothing wrong with driving a car. Your ideology is socialist, cruel and regressive. Not to mention unrealistic. Automobiles are the lifeblood of our economy. You fail to understand the basic concept of personal efficiency. To hell with your bicycles and your light rails and your trains and your subways and your mindless, wasteful spending. Self-righteous pricks, the lot of you. Cars reign supreme!

Stop using that word socialism.
1st, Socialism is not the proliferation or being bequeathed with a given
service. We have public post offices and libraries, etc.
2nd, Socialism is a politically maintained economic system where by the means of production and given resources are handled/owned by the public or state entity behest service to the pubic; and the private acquisition or utilization is either curtailed or prohibited….last I checked private libraries or roads were not illegal.

One of the more common arguments that has worked its way around the country is that roads, public services, and schools are socialism. This argument is created in an attempt to slap capitalists in the face and make them realize that they do indeed appreciate the things that socialism has established for them in their day-to-day life including the things that they utilize in their capitalistic enterprises like roads if they run a transportation or freight business. A road is a public good. An item whose consumption is not decided by the individual consumer but by the society as a whole, and which is financed by taxation. A public good (or service) may be consumed without reducing the amount available for others, and cannot be withheld from those who do not pay for it. Public goods (and services) include economic statistics and other information, law enforcement, national defense, parks, and other things for the use and benefit of all. No market exists for such goods, and they are provided to everyone by governments. Our roads are mostly local and state run. The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people. Like building Roads…………………..Actually the fed does have the power to produce roads. Article I, Section VIII, Clause VII of the Constitution…

“To establish Post Offices and post Roads” albeit this was before electric communication.

Public goods do not qualify as ‘socialism’. First, they typically do not generate wealth; there may be nominal user fees for such things as the post office, but these are not as much wealth generators as they are upkeep fees. The government does not create wealth based on the use of roads, police officers, or public libraries. There is little to no
market for such goods. Even though the government oversee or enact specifications regarding the means of production, it does not control the means; the government has not taken over the factories that produce concrete or asphalt or streetlights or street signs. The government may own bridges and tunnels but they don’t control the contractors that built them in the first place. They contract the company to produce such things. It’s also ironic that socialist countries..also build pretty comprehensive road systems even if they discourage automobile usage or ownership, if for no other reason to put people to work. Public services…….no matter how individualized are not socialism. Socialism is about means of production and property allocation, not means of utilization.

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